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Native peace symbol marks nation's day

By D. D. McNicoll

27 January 2007 - A GIANT re-creation of an Aboriginal artwork in a sheep paddock in Western Australia was the visual highlight of yesterday's Australia Day celebrations.

The artwork was photographed from space for Microsoft as part of the National Australia Day Council's Look Up and Smile project, with other events at Kirra Beach on Queensland's Gold Coast and Centennial Park in Sydney also the focus of the cameras.

Entitled Peace, the West Australian artwork was created using semi-trailers to carefully lay tonnes of coloured sand in a paddock belonging to the Benedictine community at New Norcia, north of Perth.
The 100sqm painting was re-created from an image by three Yuat artists - Sheila Humphries, Fatima Drayton and Deborah Nannup.

"We called the painting Peace because it's about different peoples coming together," Ms Humphries said.
"There's no future for reconciliation unless both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people come together -- we're both as stubborn as each other."

The three women had never worked together, despite being related, but combined for the project, aimed at uniting Australians 40 years after the 1967 referendum recognising Aborigines as citizens.

"Acknowledging the past and building tolerance for the future - reconciliation can't move forward until our history has been properly acknowledged," Ms Drayton said.

Elsewhere across the continent, the holiday was marked by barbecues, marches, concerts, fireworks, an assortment of races and citizenship ceremonies.

In Victoria, Premier Steve Bracks kicked off the celebrations early when he fired the gun to start the Williamstown-to-Geelong yacht race.

Mr Bracks then attended a flag-raising ceremony at Melbourne Town Hall before joining Victorian Governor David de Kretser and Melbourne Lord Mayor John So in leading a march by hundreds of revellers - including lifesavers, Chinese dragons and bands - along Swanston Street to the Alexandra Gardens.

Mr Bracks said the thousands of people who turned out to watch the march proved that multiculturalism was still "alive and well here in Victoria".

For Nadia Sesova and husband Bernard Robin, Australia Day at Melbourne's Brighton Beach has become somewhat of a tradition for the quintessentially modern Australian couple.

Architect Nadia is originally from Macedonia and her husband from France. They met in Australia and now make the pilgrimage to the beach each year - this year only for the second time with 18-month-old daughter Angelina Robin-Sesova.

They were among hundreds who spent the sunny day at historic Brighton beach but had to get there early to snatch the prime spot in front of the Australian flag inspired box.

"It's lovely, lovely. We got here at 10am ... we love it, it's a landmark of Melbourne," Nadia said.

Governor-General Michael Jeffery visited Victoria's bushfire-ravaged high country to thank volunteer firefighters for their efforts.

In Sydney, an indigenous celebration of dance and song began on the harbour foreshores early yesterday. Hundreds of people gathered at Farm Cove to commemorate the meeting of the waters, Woggan-ma-gule, on the traditional ceremonial grounds of the indigenous Cadigal clan.

The smell of burning eucalyptus leaves wafted over the Botanical Gardens as boomerang clapping welcomed Aboriginal elders, men, women and children, all painted in ochre, who were to perform at the ceremonial site.

In Canberra, Ian "Dicko" Dickson, the former Australian Idol judge whom viewers loved to hate, was among dozens of immigrants who received their citizenship certificates from Prime Minister John Howard. The British-born Dickson joked that England would now win at cricket.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin joined more than 2500 fitness enthusiasts for the early morning 6km Australia Day fun run through Darwin.

In Perth, police were last night expecting more than 300,000 people to pack the Swan River foreshore for the annual fireworks display.

Source: The Australian

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